


Slithering, Cursing, Bitter. (Soft?)

by MaxTheWaxBoy



Category: Camp Camp (Web Series)
Genre: Gwen cares, Max Centric, Max is actually hela good with animals, Snakes, and then he cries bc Gwen wants to see him happy, gosh i havne't written camp camp in forever, its sweet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-18
Updated: 2018-05-18
Packaged: 2019-05-08 16:59:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14698482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaxTheWaxBoy/pseuds/MaxTheWaxBoy
Summary: Max is really good with snakes, and happens to tell no one until they have a run in with one while singing around the campfire.





	Slithering, Cursing, Bitter. (Soft?)

**Author's Note:**

> PSA: i know nothing about how to tame a snake but im really good with animals and did something vaguely like this once and it worked sort of??? lmao  
> Anyway, Max gets a pet snake and calls it innocence and its edgy, enjoooooo--

Max slumped forward, head falling hard into his hands as he quietly wished for death watching Nikki and David dancing around and singing, David also playing guitar.

Neil chuckled, apparently hearing him (Neil heard everything, Max hated it), saying, “Same,” and made swirls in the dirt with a stick. The stick snapped and Neil’s eye twitched. Max laughed as Neil started rocking back and forth whispering, “Max are we gonna actually go insane here?” and then joining Max in laughing.

After they stopped giggling, Max instead directed his thoughts on the vast dark woods that surrounded them.

A certain uneasiness came from staring at those woods, a realization that anything could happen in them, no matter how unlikely. And something happen it did.

Over David and Nikki’s loud, happy singing, which almost everyone but him, Neil, and Gwen had joined into, Max heard hissing.

He looked over to Gwen first, who’s anxiety seemed missing right now as she was apparently deaf. That was a loud fucking hiss.

He flickered over to Neil, who was wide eyed staring at the woods in front of him, around the fire.

Max tended to go into a predatory hunch when something caught his attention that couldn’t be explained immediately. This hiss could be a lot of things.

He set both hands in front of him like a cat ready to pounce and faced the woods to his right, rapidly scanning his surroundings.

Max snapped around fast enough to get whiplash when he heard David yelp in surprise, saying something about something possibly being poisonous. Nikki was approaching the unseen thing with no caution, joining it in hissing.

Max was at the scene in record time, leaning over Nikki’s shoulder.

It was...a snake? 

_They were all so afraid of a snake? How pathetic._

The snake snapped at Nikki and she backed up with a huff, joining the other kids in huddling around or behind David and Gwen.

Gwen shocked him by being the one to suggest he back up.

“Hey look Max, I know you have this weird thing with ‘no fears’ or whatever, but that could actually be dangerous, we should head to the mess hall and wait for it to get bored,” she said, gesturing for the kids to do as she instructed.

Everyone almost did, until they saw Max walk up to the snake and hum in a high pitched tone, setting his hand on the ground in front of it. It jumped for his hand just once and he rolled his eyes, trying again but humming higher.

The snake paused, hissing dying down and Max smiled, humming that soft high tune consistently as it slithered closer. He kicked up some dust with his hand and when it settled the snake was wrapped around his arm.

It didn’t constrict, showing no ill intent and sat there, liking at Max’s knuckles. It didn’t seem real.  
Everyone was entranced as Max smiled genuinely for the first time in what felt like decades and sat on one of the log benches. He turned to them and rolled his eyes.  
“Get back to singing annoyingly, I got him,” he said, lifting it to his face. It licked his cheek and he laughed a bit.

To be honest, everyone at camp kind of forgot Max was 12 almost all the time. He acts so...tired, sad, upset at things that aren’t a current issue. He seemed so much like an adult, it scared even Gwen sometimes, how she’d say something and Max would respond with a completely logical response, with all the usual sarcasm, but still getting his point across with such vocabulary she almost had to take a step back.

He had lost part of his soul somehow, is what Gwen and a few others usually concluded. Sad really, innocence lost so early in life.

But that wasn’t the point, the point was that Max was laughing like the child he tried so hard to deny he was.

Gwen’s eyes widened and she ushered David to continue to sing, and pulled Max (and his snake) aside.

“You’re keeping it” she said firmly.

He stopped detaching it from his arm and side eyed her.

“What? I thought it was dangerous or whatever?” he said bitterly but smiled at the snake when it gave a short hiss, like its own form of barking.

Gwen pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed, “It is dangerous, but you obviously seem to be a fucking snake whisperer, and it makes you- I don’t know how to describe it- like a child again?” she said, making wild hand gestures to try to prove her point.

Max showed yet another emotion, surprise, as he watched wide eyed while Gwen continued to talk.

“And you just- you seem to hate everything, everyone and you just seem so much like an adult- an adult like me, anxious, upset at everything, d-depressed- it’s probably unhealthy for a growing child and- just keep it! It makes you happy, so keep it,” she finished, calming her rushed tone to end the conversation.

Max stared, still wide-eyed as Gwen fixed her shirt and walked to sit on one of the logs around the campfire, looking almost as shaky as he felt.

She...cared?

She had called him Satan on multiple occasions and embarrassed him in front of everyone, quietly devastating him and his stupid emotions by throwing Mr. Honeynuts at him. And she cared enough to see him happy?

The snake hissed while hitting its tail on his arm almost playfully, getting his attention, and in a quiet, choked up voice, he laughed and guided the snake to sit on his shoulders.

“Your name’s Innocence,” Innocence licked his cheek, and he snickered, wiping at his face (more specifically his eyes), and heading back to the fire.

Neil gave him an unreadable look, mostly shocked, examining Max’s face.  
“She made you cry?” he said in shock. “You. _Crying?_ ” Neil said again, although more confused.

Max flipped him off and twiddled with some leaves and stared at the fire. Neil was having none of it apparently and nudged him.

“Dude, its fine to cry, just wanna know why,” he paused and looked around, “If you wanna make a mad dash to your tent I can make a distraction,” he offered.

Max glared and pointedly said, “No Neil, I’m fine fuck off,” and they sat in silence until Max said, ever so quietly, knowing only Neil would hear, “Thanks though,” and in his peripheral, Neil smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> snakes!!!!! i love those multi-colored noodles!!!  
> anyway, hope you liked, i had fun writing it, made me feel all happy n shit (lmao happy?? who she??)  
> <33


End file.
